"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson

Friday, May 09, 2008

Be skeptical. Be very skeptical.

For a classic case of sheer fear-mongering, few examples can top the cover of Time Magazine for their issue of April 3, 2006. This "SPECIAL REPORT GLOBAL WARMING" tells you to "BE WORRIED. BE VERY WORRIED." Once you get past the scary capitalization and the requisite polar bear in peril, the finer print paints Time Magazine into some rather uncomfortable and contradictory corners. It says: Climate change isn't some vague future problem -- it's already damaging the planet at an alarming pace....

First, is it "Global Warming" or is it "Climate Change"? The Church of Global Warming seems to be unable to make up its mind. That is to be expected when record cold hits during a time of "Global Warming!" The best part of the fine print is where it says that climate change isn't some vague future problem. Time Magazine has experience in that department - that is, reporting about future changes in the weather and the climate. The problem for Time Magazine is that the last time they wrung their hands about the future end of the world, they were wrong. Read some of these choice excerpts from an article that appeared in the June 24, 1974 edition of Time:

In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada's wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone's recollection.

Oh no! Bad weather!

As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.

Oh no! The bad weather is being caused by Global Cooling!

Sunspot Cycle. The changing weather is apparently connected with differences in the amount of energy that the earth's surface receives from the sun. Changes in the earth's tilt and distance from the sun could, for instance, significantly increase or decrease the amount of solar radiation falling on either hemisphere—thereby altering the earth's climate. Some observers have tried to connect the eleven-year sunspot cycle with climate patterns, but have so far been unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of how the cycle might be involved.

No way! You mean the sun might have some role in affecting the fluctuating temperature of the earth?

Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.

EEEEK! You mean we parasitic people might be helping to cause this cooling trend? We better change our behavior and radically alter our economy and industry if we are going to stop this climatological cooling nightmare from happening! Who knows how cold this planet could be by, say, the year 2008, if we don't act now!

Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth's surface could tip the climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.

Oh my! I guess it's a good thing that the temperature has warmed up. After all, 34 years ago, they were talking about an onset of another Ice Age.

If the scientists and experts got it so wrong then, why should we listen to them anymore today? Face reality, all you members of the Church of Global Warming: The climate is going to change no matter what we puny humans do. So get over yourselves, and stop giving us humans so much credit.

I never trust those who predict the future and say "The facts show..."

We (mankind) cannot control the earth's temperature if we wanted to. The earth is a living, breathing thing. It will do w hat it wants, when it wants and there is very little, if anything, we can do about it.

I DO remember the soothsayers years ago saying we were headed for another ice age. That ice age never happened. Now it is global warming.

Hell, I have as many credentials as most of these "so-called" experts. If I, and many of my fellow bloggers, had the media outlets that the liberal wackos and their supporters have, we could expound our opinions and control public opinion.

People want to hear bad news. That way they can bitch, gripe, and complain about how miserable they are. They can blame their troubles on someone else. Then when they do get a small bit of good news, a little tidbit that makes them feel better, a small glimmer of hope, they feel immediately redeemed. They feel their bitching, moaning and complaining DID make a difference.

That is human nature. In addition, the authors and publishers of the trash in the magazine(s) you speak of are preying on that sentiment.

Their readers’ despair and longing for something positive is what makes them money.

In any case, life goes on. People, overall, will not change. Give they people what they want (by way of someone telling them what they want) and they will be happy.

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I am native of the mountains of northern California; 12-year veteran of the U.S. Army and California National Guard; Secondary School History teacher; Husband; Father of Two; and three-time honoree as Time Magazine's Person of the Year (2003, 2006, 2011).